Space. Is. Awesome.

I sometimes get bogged down by the politics of NASA and its Washington, D.C., overlords, and the seemingly futile cycle of human spaceflight program announcements, under-funding of said programs, and cancellation of such programs.

But that’s losing sight of the forest for the trees — or whatever the heck that saying is. You know what I mean.

And what I mean is that space is awesome. Human spaceflight. Robotic spaceflight. All of the above.

Here are just two examples that I stumbled upon recently.

First up is a photo taken from aboard the International Space Station a week ago showing Pavlof Volcano, which is located in Aleutian Arc about 625 miles southwest of Anchorage.

Pavlof Volcano from Station. As always, click to enlarge. (NASA)

What’s cool is that the height of the station and its oblique perspective afford a unique, three dimensional view of the ash plume. And it’s just an awesome image.

Next up is a video put together by YouTuber Karl Sanford. It’s a time-lapse video created from a stream of images taken by the rover’s Front Left Hazcam between August 8th, 2012, and May 21st.

So, like, humanity sent this automobile-sized rover 100 million miles across the solar system, dropped it out of the heavens onto the red planet as gentle as you please, and now it’s driving around there.

The little rover is now merrily sending pictures back every day, and you can sit there and take in all the grandness of the Martian landscape from the comfort of a chair

When you think about it that way, well, NASA rocks. Space rocks. And the Internet rocks.